Hobbyists get ready to launch pico balloons. Facebook
US hobby club fear their missing weather balloon was shot down by USAF
A hobby club known as the Northern Illinois Bottlecap Balloon Brigade lost their $12 weather balloon. It may have been one of the "unknown objects" shot down with a $400 000 Sidewinder missile by the US government last week.
Published: February 17, 2023, 8:23 am
Aviation Week reported that the club’s balloon had last been spotted on 10 February “off the west coast of Alaska”.
“I tried contacting our military and the FBI – and just got the runaround – to try to enlighten them on what a lot of these things probably are. And they’re going to look not too intelligent to be shooting them down,” said Ron Meadows, a Silicon Valley company founder that makes purpose-built balloons for hobbyists, educators and scientists.
A popular forecasting tool projected that the balloon “would be floating high over the central part of the Yukon Territory on February 11. “That is the same day a Lockheed Martin F-22 shot down an unidentified object of a similar description and altitude in the same general area.”
Meadows said the descriptions of all three unidentified objects shot down matched the shapes, altitudes and payloads of the small pico balloons, which can usually be purchased for $12-180 each, depending on the model.
Tom Medlin, a retired FedEx engineer and co-host of the Amateur Radio Roundtable show, agreed. “I’m guessing probably they were pico balloons,” and added that he had three such balloons in flight in the Northern and Southern hemispheres.
Aviation Week contacted the FBI, North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), the National Security Council (NSC) and the Office of the Secretary of Defense for comment, but were brushed off.
In a White House statement on Thursday, President Biden had to admit the obvious however: “The intelligence community’s current assessment is that these three objects were most likely balloons tied to private companies, recreation, or research institutions studying weather or conducting other scientific research.”
Currently, around 2000 single-use stratospheric balloons are launched daily.
All rights reserved. You have permission to quote freely from the articles provided that the source (www.freewestmedia.com) is given. Photos may not be used without our consent.
Consider donating to support our work
Help us to produce more articles like this. FreeWestMedia is depending on donations from our readers to keep going. With your help, we expose the mainstream fake news agenda.
Keep your language polite. Readers from many different countries visit and contribute to Free West Media and we must therefore obey the rules in, for example, Germany. Illegal content will be deleted.
If you have been approved to post comments without preview from FWM, you are responsible for violations of any law. This means that FWM may be forced to cooperate with authorities in a possible crime investigation.
If your comments are subject to preview by FWM, please be patient. We continually review comments but depending on the time of day it can take up to several hours before your comment is reviewed.
We reserve the right to delete comments that are offensive, contain slander or foul language, or are irrelevant to the discussion.
Americas
Ohio disaster: When hedge funds manage rail traffic
East PalestineAfter the derailment of a freight train loaded with highly toxic chemicals in the US state of Ohio, a devastating environmental catastrophe may now be imminent. The wagons burned for days, and a "controlled" explosion by the authorities released dangerous gases into the environment.
US President Biden orders ‘spy’ balloon to be shot down
WashingtonThe US President gave the order to shoot down China's "spy balloon". The balloon had caused US Secretary of State Blinken to cancel a trip to Beijing. In the meantime, a second balloon was sighted.
US is heading for a financial ‘catastrophe’ US Treasury Secretary warns
WashingtonOn January 19, 2023, the United States hit its debt ceiling of $31.4 trillion. The country faces a recession if it defaults on its debt, the US Treasury Secretary warned in an interview. Her warning underscored the danger of printing money.
Gun violence: More risk in Chicago and Philadelphia than Iraq, Afghanistan
Providence, Rhode IslandA striking statistic: young Americans are several times more likely to be injured by a gun in cities like Chicago and Philadelphia than they are while serving as a soldier in a foreign country.
Elon Musk, the first person in history to destroy $200 billion in a year
Never before in human history has a person lost as much money in one year as Elon Musk did in 2022. The Tesla and Twitter boss lost $200 billion last year. However, with his remaining $137 billion, he is still the second richest person in the world.
Extreme cold and winter storms sweep across US
More than a million households without electricity, thousands of canceled flights, temperatures in the double-digit minus range and already 41 fatalities: The US is being overwhelmed by an enormous cold wave.
Soros sponsors violent leftists and anti-police lobby as US crime surges
WashingtonThe mega-speculator and "philanthropist" George Soros remains true to himself – he has been sponsoring anti-police left-wing groups with billions of dollars.
FTX Founder Sam Bankman-Fried arrested after crypto billions go missing
NassauHe is no longer sitting in his fancy penthouse, but in a cell in the Bahamas: Sam Bankman-Fried (30), founder of the crypto company FTX, is said to be responsible for the theft of 37 billion euros. An interesting fact is that media in the EU have so far kept this crime thriller almost completely secret.
How Twitter helped Biden win the US presidency
WashingtonThe short message service Twitter massively influenced the US presidential election campaign two years ago in favor of the then candidate Joe Biden. The then incumbent Donald Trump ultimately lost the election. Internal e-mails that the new owner, Elon Musk, has now published on the short message service show how censorship worked on Twitter. The 51-year-old called it the “Twitter files”.
Alberta PM suspends cooperation with WEF
EdmontonThe newly elected Premier Danielle Smith of the province of Alberta in Canada has recently made several powerful statements against the globalist foundation World Economic Forum and its leader Klaus Schwab. She has also decided to cancel a strange consulting agreement that WEF had with the state.
No comments.
By submitting a comment you grant Free West Media a perpetual license to reproduce your words and name/web site in attribution. Inappropriate and irrelevant comments will be removed at an admin’s discretion. Your email is used for verification purposes only, it will never be shared.